'McLaren and Honda heads down solving issues,' insists Brown

For all its lousy relative performance and rumors of impending split with Honda, McLaren is heads down and committed to bouncing back with its engine partner.

McLaren kicked off the third year of its partnership with Honda last weekend in Melbourne with a perennial under-performance.

Despite its dismal start to the new season and rumors swirling about the future of its engine supply agreement with Honda, McLaren executive Zak Brown remains undeterred, convinced that a turnaround of its fortunes can be achieved.

"I think the degree of issues that we had in Spain were definitely not what we anticipated," Brown conceded.

"We knew, as Hasegawa-San [Honda's F1 chief] said, with the kind of re-design of the engine that they had taken some risks, and with risk comes risk, so testing wasn't pleasant.

"We're working very hard on it. I think if anyone thinks we are standing still they'd be incorrect in their thinking. We're in Sakura often, Eric [Boullier] has been there on a weekly basis.

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Brown isn't addressing his team's state of affairs lightly, but acknowledgement of McLaren's difficulties is the first step towards resolution.

"These things happen, it's a tough sport and the Mercedes and the Ferrari and the Renault have a huge headstart on Honda.

"They took some risk in that they re-designed the engine this year and didn't come out of the gate as strong as we can, but it is what it is and now we just need to work very hard to improve it.

"I think Renault obviously had some big issues a couple of years ago and they made some impressive gains during the season, so it can be done and in our instance it needs to be done."

The team's predicament hasn't eroded the fighting spirit or motivation among the troops however.

"It's not difficult to keep everyone motivated," Brown said.

"I've been pleasantly surprised - maybe surprised is the wrong word - very happy to see how the team has reacted.

"You go into the garage and you can't see a different temperament whether we're winning or have issues and I think that's because this is a world champion team. Keeping everyone together, that's been quite easy.

"Fernando and Stoffel are obviously frustrated that we are not more competitive, which is understandable and we share in that pain but we are not going to quit.

"We are where we are and now we just need to improve."
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